Comparing the Stonewall Riots to Earlier Events in the Gay Rights Movement
Conor Stephenson
Senior Division
Historical Paper

I. Introduction
In the years preceding 1970, American homosexuals began to seek acceptance from others. This came to a turning point when they fought back against oppression in the 1969
Stonewall Riots. Many people believe the Stonewall Riots was the most important event within the gay rights movement during this time period. However, there were multiple turning points predating the Stonewall riots which were more important, such as the homophile movement of the early 60s, the successes of the Mattachine Society, the condemnation of ‘entrapment’ by New
York City mayor John Lindsay, and the overruling of the SLA’s anti-gay law. This essay will examine the effects of these earlier events on the gay rights movement and compare them to the effects of the Stonewall Riots on the gay rights movement.
II. American Homosexual Life Up to the Sixties
In the early 20 th century, the idea of homosexuality was more recognized, and people began to be labeled as homosexuals. One reason for the creation of the label of homosexuality had to do with American industrialization. Historian John D’Emilio theorized that “…the process of industrialisation and urbanisation, and the movement of workers from plantations and family farms to wage labour in the cities, made it easier for Americans with same-sex desires to explore their sexuality.” (Lionel). Industrialization brought people with homosexual desires closer together, resulting in the labeling of certain people as homosexuals. This labeled was augmented by Sigmund Freud, a psychoanalyst who developed theories about homosexuality.
In the mid-20 th
century, many people despised homosexuals. “They were out of their … minds – that was the reality of the sixties,” said pop artist Ronnie Cutrone, who still remembers the attitudes of people towards homosexuals back then. “Nobody had long hair – you were a …

freak, you were a fruit, you were not like the rest of the world” (McNeil & McCain 14). This quote reflects the negativity people felt towards homosexuals. Popular media only worsened this hatred, often broadcasting anti-gay public service announcements, such 1961’s Boys Beware or
CBS’s 1967 documentary The Homosexuals .
All of this hostility was the main reason that homosexual culture was an underground phenomenon. Homosexual acts were illegal in every state except Illinois back then (forcing gays to have sex in public places), and homosexuals even feared dancing in public. According to
Amelia Jackson in an 1965 interview with the Daily Californian , most homosexuals were forced to “…go to special dance halls in San Francisco reserved for them,” (Amelia). When people were discovered to be gay, they would either be sent to jail or to a mental hospital, in which they’d be given therapy ranging from psychotherapy to shock therapy, in which the doctors showed erotic pictures of men to homosexuals and then shocked them with electricity in order to kill all sexual urges towards men. Sometimes doctors and therapists even went as far as to castrate or lobotomize their patients to ‘cure’ them of homosexuality. (Wheeler) This hatred towards homosexuals gave them a reason to take a stand and try to change the way people viewed them.
III. The Homophile Movement
The homophile movement began in response to the negativity that homosexuals experienced from all parts of society. This early gay rights group was founded on the ideals that all homosexuals should have rights equal to those of all the other people in America. However, they weren’t as radical as future groups, as they tried to achieve equal rights through assimilating with straight culture. They used the term ‘homophile’ to promote the idea that homosexuals

weren’t sex-obsessed, as this was a popular belief among uneducated people, along with the idea that homosexuals could never have any lasting romantic relationships. Frank Kameny, a leader in the homophile movement, once said “This is the homophile movement – we are not fighting for sexual freedom” (Stein). They tried to show how they were just normal people who wanted to have equal rights by protesting wearing suits and dresses (with men and women wearing the clothes that fit the gender binary back then).
But although they dressed in a style that said they were average people, that didn’t mean that they held back from protesting. In September of 1964, two homophile groups called the
Homosexual League of New York and the League for Sexual Freedom organized a demonstration at the White House to protest military policies which negatively affected homosexuals. Then, on April 25 th
, 1965, a group of two males and one female refused to leave a restaurant named ‘Dewey’s’ after many other homosexuals had been denied service based on their sexual orientation. They were arrested, but a week later more people protested in the same place, and the police refused to arrest the protesters. These protests were decisive victories in the homophile movement, and influenced many future protests against anti-gay policies.
One of the most important homophile protests following these victories was a demonstration that was done at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on Independence Day; this became an annual protest, which grew with size each year. All of these victories were important precursors to later events.
IV. The Mattachine Society
One of the most important groups during the age of the homophile movement was the
Mattachine Society, a group based in Los Angeles which was founded in 1950 by Harry Hay and

Frank Kameny. It soon grew to a nationwide group, with different chapters in different cities all around the country. The Mattachine Society had many important successes in trying to promote gay rights.
One huge success of theirs was in getting WBAI to do a news broadcast about homosexuality, in which multiple gay men were interviewed. This was a result of Mattachine member Randy Wicker’s confrontation of Dick Elman, the director of public affairs for WBAI.
Elman agreed to meet with eight gay men and talk with them about their homosexuality, broadcasting this in a 96 minute program on WBAI. This immediately became a hit, and was released in article form by many newspapers, including The New York Times , Newsweek , and
The New York Herald Tribune . This was a monumental broadcast, as it caused “…the coverage of homosexuality in the national media from 1962 to 1965 [to increase] markedly as a result of
Wicker’s campaign,” (Carter 23). This increased positive press regarding homosexuality, and revealed the truth of homosexual life, contradicting the propaganda that the government had broadcast in previous years about homosexuality.
Another success that they had was in March of 1967, in a which the Mattachine Society won a case which ruled that that the SLA didn’t have the power to revoke the license of any bar if the reason for revoking their license was that they served homosexuals.
V. Campaign Against Entrapment
A major success that the Mattachine Society had was their victory in their campaign against entrapment. Back then, entrapment was one of the key ways that police officers arrested homosexuals. They would dress up in clothes that made them seem gay, and then wait in the areas where gay men ‘cruised’ each others. Therefore, they would be able to trick homosexuals

into revealing themselves to the cops; at that time, the cops would arrest them and take them to the police station. This was horrible for homosexuals, because they had nowhere else to go
(except for the few gay bars), and this meant that they weren’t safe even when looking for a sexual partner. The problem of entrapment got even worse when New York mayor Ed Koch began to promote entrapment as a way to ‘clean up the streets’ in 1965, although he denied the fact that he knew entrapment was going on, as it was supposed to be banned (Carter 46).
However, this issue took a turn for the better in later 1965, when John Lindsay was elected as the mayor of New York. He was not as pro-entrapment as Koch, and in March of 1966,
Lindsay discussed the issue in a city meeting. During the meeting, Randy Wicker asked the chief inspector of the NYPD, Sanford Garelick, whether he allowed entrapment or not. Garelick told everyone that he condemned it and told his officers not to practice it, but the executive director of the NYCLU, Aryeh Neier, disagreed with Garelick, saying that he knew for a fact that the
NYPD practiced entrapment. This made Mayor Lindsay suspicious of Garelick, and therefore he ordered Garelick to end the practice of entrapment and report all police officers’ practice of entrapment as a crime. This reduced the practice of entrapment to a large degree, and revealed
Mayor John Lindsay’s sympathy towards the disadvantaged homosexuals.
VI. The Stonewall Riots
In the early hours of June 28, 1969, eight police officers, led by Inspector Seymour Pine, raided the Stonewall Inn under the pretense that the Inn owners hadn’t applied for a license as mandated by the SLA as of June 1; basically, their excuse was that “…the police [were] scrutinizing all unlicensed places, and most of the bars that are in that category happen[ed] to cater to homosexuals” (Stonewall at 40). However, according to Sylvia Rivera, someone who

took part in the Riots, “They had gotten their payoff earlier in the week. But Inspector Pine came in-him and his morals squad-to spend more of the government's money” (Rivera). Although
Seymour Pine had a warrant for the inspection of the Inn, he didn’t tell his superiors he was going to raid it that night, which proved to be a bad thing to do later.
As the police walked in, they forced most of the 200 people who were dancing inside to get out immediately. As they left the bar, the people outside just stood around, not knowing what to do. Although some talk of rebellion had been spread, nothing happened for a while. According to Howard Smith, a writer for The Village Voice
, “The turning point came when the police had difficulty keeping a dyke in a patrol car,” (Smith). This lesbian shouted at the rest of the onlookers, telling them to do something to stop them, and then the night exploded into chaos.
People threw coins, bottles, trashcans, and other things at the police officers who were outside at the time. Others punched, kicked, and assaulted the police officers. This violent reaction prompted them to go inside and lock the door, figuring it was safer inside the bar than outside. However, soon enough, the outside rioters tried to break down the door, using a parking meter as a battering ram. Inspector Pine yelled that they would shoot anyone who tried to come inside the bar, and so the battering stopped. However, the next thing they knew, someone had thrown lighter fluid inside along with a lit match. This almost resulted in the bar being burnt down. This ‘battle’ ended when reinforcements came, scattering the rest of the rioters and ending the violence of the riots, but not stopping them; the riots continued for the next six days, slowly getting less and less violent.
In the words of Lucian Truscott, the journalist who wrote the first article about the Riots in The Village Voice , “By the time the fags were able to regroup forces and come up with

another assault, several carloads of police reinforcements had arrived, and in minutes the streets were clear” (Stonewall at 40). These riots had ended, but the sentiment had not died; according to Scott G. Brown, a participant in the event, “The riots were a reflection of the innermost feelings and sentiments of the crowd, who were fed up with the harassment and assaults at the hands of the police,” (Brown). The idea that the homosexuals of America needed to revolt and protest against their government in order to acquire the rights they deserved was promoted by these riots.
VI. The Stonewall Riots: Incident or Accident?
According to Warren Allen Smith, who was a huge gay-rights activist back then, the
Stonewall Riots were “…just another fight,” (Dimkova). However, the publicity of the Riots made them seem more important than the other turning points before them. Most of the previous gay rights victories were relatively unknown to the average person, and even some people within the gay communities in America didn’t know that they had happened. However, there was a lot more publicity about the Riots, meaning that others could read about them and spread the news easier. According to Warren Allen Smith, who had been part of the Riots, “…New York, gets the credit [for helping the gay rights movement] because for one thing we have a better media… we have CNN, we have English in our favor so we publicize big” (Dimkova). This shows just one example of a newspaper which publicized the Riots so that they seemed like the largest turning point in the movement; the New York Times and many gay-oriented newspapers wrote articles about the Riots, calling them ‘the hair pin drop heard ‘round the world,’ (Dimkova).
Veteran of the Riots, Warren Allen Smith, continues talking about how the riots were blown out of proportion by saying “…originally it [Stonewall Inn] symbolized a dirty, ugly

place… Today, it has become a symbol of the place for human rights.” By this, Smith is touching on the idea that although they were just a small turning point in the history of the gay rights movement, the Riots have been remembered as being important in order to create a symbol of resistance for the movement. This is one of the reasons that the Riots are viewed as the chief turning points in the gay rights movement these days. People talk about the Riots as if they were the most important part of the gay rights movement, although they weren’t as big as people make them out to be.
VII. Conclusion
The effects of the homophile movement, the Mattachine Society, and their campaign against entrapment were much more important turning points than the Stonewall Riots. Whereas the Riots solely serve as a ‘symbol of human rights’, the aforementioned groups and events created multiple turning points which helped the gay rights movement advance monumentally.
The fact that these turning points happened earlier means that they had a larger impact on the gay civil rights movement than the Stonewall Riots did.

Primary Sources:
McNeil, Legs, and Gillian McCain. "All Tomorrow's Parties." Please Kill Me: The
Uncensored Oral History of Punk . New York: Grove, 1996. 14. Print.
This source deals with many things unrelated to gay rights movements during the mid
20 th
century, but in the beginning it includes a section in which people were interviewed about how people viewed ‘people like them’ (homosexuals and others who deviated from the norms) during those times. This gave me a small idea of how people viewed deviants back them.
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Jackson, Amelia. “Recreation, Communication and Social Activities among Campus
Homosexuals.” Interview.
The Daily Californian 1965: n. pag. Print.
In this source, Amelia Jackson is interviewed about her life as a homosexual in college, and her experiences which had to do with her sexual orientation.
Rivera, Sylvia. Interview by Leslie Feirberg. Workers World. N.p., 1998. Web. 23 Aug. 2012. http://www.workers.org/ww/1998/sylvia0702.php
In this source, Sylvia Rivera recounts her participation in the Stonewall Riots.
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“The Stonewall Riots and Their Aftermath: An Interview with Stonewall Veteran, Warren
Allen Smith.” Interview by Stiliana Dimkova. N.P., 9 Feb. 2004. Web. 11 Aug. 2012.
<wasm.us/S_dim.pdf>.
In this source, Warren Allen Smith talks about how he was involved in the Stonewall
Riots, and what they mean to him.
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Brown, Scott G. “The Stonewall Riots, 43 Years Later: Reflections of One of the Oldest
Surviving Veterans of the Seminal Uprising.” The Huffington Post . N.p., 28 June 2012. Web.

14 Aug. 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-g-brown/stonewall-riots-43-yearslater_b_1632045.html
In this source, Scott G. Brown writes about his experience in being a part of the
Stonewall Riots.
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Smith, Howard. “Full Moon Over Stonewall.” Village Voice [New York] 3 July 1969: 1.
Print.
In this article, Howard Smith writes about the events that took place during the Stonewall
Riots.

Secondary Sources:
Wright, Lionel. “The Stonewall Riots – 1969.” Socialism Today 1 July 1999: n. pag. Print.
An article which recounts the Riots and then goes over the pre-Riots history of the gay rights movement.
Stein, Marc. “The First Gay Sit-In.” History News Network. N.p., 9 May 2005. Web. 11 Aug.
2012. <http://hnn.us/articles/11652.html>.
An article having to do with a sit-in held by gay people in order to fight for their rights.
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Hevesi, Dennis. “Seymour Pine Dies at 91; Led Raid on Stonewall Inn.”
New York Times 7
Sept. 2010: n. pag. Print.
An article about Seymour Pine, the inspector who led the raid which started the
Stonewall Riots.
"Stonewall at 40: The Voice Articles That Sparked a Final Night of Rioting."
Villagevoice.com
. The Village Voice, 24 June 2009. Web. 11 Aug. 2012.
<http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-06-24/news/stonewall-at-40-the-voices-articles-thatsparked-a-final-night-of-rioting/>.
An article that describes what happened during the Stonewall Riots.
Wheeler, Brian. "When Gays Were 'Cured'" BBC News . BBC, 11 Nov. 2003. Web. 12 Feb.
2013. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3258041.stm>.
An article that talks about how homosexuals were treated in the mid 20 th century.